


Rot

by Sorrowcult



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hanahaki Disease, Henry is a good dad, M/M, alexander is oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 06:55:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15067622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorrowcult/pseuds/Sorrowcult
Summary: John Laurens begins to rot away, love lost and with a lung full of flowers.





	Rot

Wedding bells.

John Laurens decided long ago that he hated the sound of wedding bells. It made him feel empty, made the flowers in his chest bloom a little wider. Made those flowers clog his lungs and esophagus.

When the flowers first began to bloom, it was when he saw her. All soft edges and dark eyes. Gentle blues, melodies. Laurens decided that he couldn't really hate her, but he tried.

He tried to hate her as he threw up roses and yellow hyacinths. As blood and flower petals rushed up his throat and past his lips, as he tried to fill in the cracks with gold. He remembered when he started cracking, invisible to anyone but himself. It started in his chest, though the lines were easy to fill in, just pretend that when Alexander was smiling at her, he didn't mean it but he could see the love in his eyes.

The flowers began to grow thorns and they began to stab.

Alexander invited him to his wedding, because something in Alexander was oblivious, was blind. He kept his eyes forward and he never had time to look back. Laurens was his best man, and when it came, he was all too good at having to fake his happiness.

He barely got into an empty stall before he was throwing up pink carnations and dead leaves.

It didn't take Laurens long to realize that he was rotting, that sweet smell of dead leaves and rotting flowers on his breath, the hazel of his eyes losing its luster. He found that no one noticed.

He went to South Carolina to visit his father, and he cried in his arms.

Henry Laurens loves his kids, anyone could see it in the warmth of every gaze and the way he could ramble about them for hours. So, it was understandable that when Laurens came to him, bloody carnations and chrysanthemums in hand, that he would be pained. His younger siblings didn't really understand, all of their unrequited crushes never took this extent, never once even coughing up a petal whilst Henry would find himself watching John heave full, blooming flowers.

It hurt too much.

When John began to cough up primroses and myrtles, Henry began to truly worry. He saw the way the flowers were dead, they way flesh was being torn out, and how there was truly nothing that would kill the bloody, dead bouquets.

John would curl up in his father's bed and he would close his eyes, and Henry was scared that one day, he wouldn't open his eyes again.

\----------  
"John?" Henry called, leaning against the doorway to the other's room. John looked up from what he was painting and smiled a little at his father, eyes soft. A lot about John was soft now, his once jagged edges weathered away, his eyes dark, like dead ground, rotting.

Always rotting.

"I'm going out today, would you like to come with? It's kind of boring, I'm meeting with someone from France." He was expecting a no, but it seemed his son was tired of wallowing in pity, tired of the pain. "Yeah, dad, I'll be down." He smiled and stood up, and Henry nodded before going down to his office.

The room was always cold, when his wife died, it lost all its warmth. He sat down at the dark wood desk and put his head in his hands before he began to cry.

"Dad, why can't I drive there?" John asked, looking at him as he buckled in. Henry scoffed a little.

"Because I like my life. You drive like a bat out of hell." He savored the sound of his son's laugh, it was a rarity these days.

Henry would like to pretend he didn't see the way John's eyes widened and his cheeks darkened when they met his man from France, he had to be a little younger than John and he already ran a business of his own. They continued the meeting, but he saw them lag behind and he pretended he wasn't listening.

"I hope I don't seem too eager, but would you like my number John Laurens?" A small gasp from John and a little laugh. "Lafayette, I would love to give you my number."

The ride home was a quiet affair but Henry couldn't hold his tongue for long.

"You be sure to call that boy, John. He barely kept his eyes on me, too busy looking at you." He saw John flush and look away, hiding his smile.

"Dad!"

That night, John slept in his own bed and he didn't throw up any flowers.

Not a single petal.

The months went bye and John seemed to have began to grow happier. There was only once incident where John found himself coughing up flowers, and they were clean, red flowers. John didn't seem to be rotting anymore, his eyes full of life, bright and lustrous.

When Lafayette met Alexander, he saw perhaps what John had fallen for, but he couldn't help but appreciate how John couldn't seem to take his eyes off Lafayette's form. The Frenchman remembered the hushed conversation he'd heard, the congrats from Alexander, the apology from John for being gone for so long. He remembered the way John looked at Alexander like he was finally letting go.

A year passed, and Lafayette had become an intangible part of John's life, one he would kiss softly, one that would hold back his hair as he threw up from drinking.

He appreciated how Henry blessed their relationship, how he looked so much younger, like years of worry were gone at the sight of seeing his son happy.

_"I love you, John Laurens."_

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment, they give me life.
> 
> Also, hit me up on Tumblr @ firstburrn


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